CERTAIN, CELEBRATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12932, 11 October 1907, Page 10

CERTAIN , CELEBRATIONS.

TO THK KDITOR OF "Tlfli PRESS."' Sir,—l perceive from a report in your paper that in connection with the local celebration of Trafalgar Day the volunteers are to assist. This* proposal seems a fit occasion lor suggesting a general mutiny of the volunteers Within a period of less than twelve months last past there have been several prominent occasions, to my recollection, when the defence forces have, at the instance of public or private persons, been improperly put into positions of ridicule. The evolutions at the opening of the International Exhibition were Mich as are fitly carried out by mercenary troops, who havn no civil occupation, and in whose training such exercise makes profit able alternation with work bearing more directly on the art of fighting; but in the case of the volunteers, the success of those manoeuvres was only attained after months of steady rehearsal, which represent a worse tiling than sheer waste of time, inasmuch as the qualities of barrack-room iastidionsness and cultivated helplessness. cTiicfly fostered thereby, tend to i-nfit t: man for <utivo work under modern service conditions. -Again, at the close of the Exhibition, the volunteers were railed upon to do the work of common policemen—work that had no sort of connection with the volunteers' task of national defence —and were subject to considerable indignities in the doing of it. Thirdly, on Dominion Day, the forces were bidden to assemble in full dress, only for the purposes of needlessly fouling their rifles with discharge of blank, and of surrounding loquacious civic dignitaries with the pomp and circumstance in which their hearts delight. And now a Xavy League Committee, taking all things for granted, proposes further ostentation and waste of time, and

possibly more aimless fouling of rifleparades. It may be tnkon * B of bo matie. that n recruit who cann<* bo brought into a corps ny any other menus than the attraction of ft hairy hat or a vermilion tunic is not wort having. It is a matter of common knowledge that every fancy die* parade deters numbers of young men from joining tho forces; one has alrondv heard two or three d «ereni chaps'say that after seeing the iJominion Day performance they ««« take first-class care to keep clear oi vnliintwrine. The energetic To'nntejr sees the rare chance of a whole holiday, when he ought to be out on tne hills gettins: .some idea of skirmishing, o down on the range at R-edclitts, wasted in closo formation in Hagie.v I'aik. M;.:i nfter man gets sickened with tho fnroe. and applies for his discharge: the roecnt cancellation of a field day for Octol>er Oth, tho prospect of which hnd miti>at«l the annoyance felt with the orders for Dominion Day, i.i only another straw on the camel s back. " The companies find that as the mon have only a limited time at their disposal, the more brass buttons must be cleaned, the dirtier the rifles got. (Considerations like these will show the real cause of that apathy among the volunteers themselves, and general absence of athletically-inclined men. from the ranks, which were commented on in the last Commandant's report. Remains the notion that ceremonial parades '"keep the volunteers before the public." Would it not be better for them to blush unseen than to receivo publicity which brings no real credit? The* ideal volunteer corps would bo ono that could reach Akaroa across country in one day without getting last more than twice, which could guarantee an average of magpies at 700 yards all through the company, and which made it a. boast to have no tull-dross uniform at all. If a fair percentage of its members knew three ways of reaching the Grey Valley mines without coming in sight of the West Coast coach road, its practical worth would, be so much tho greater. Iγ the meantime, till v.o attain the ideal, it would be well if the Navy League kept to its distribution of tikis and totems from the wood of the Victory and the bangles of Lady Hamilton, and remembered that tho volunteer is not a Tommy, but a citizen soldier, and ought to be allowed to do his work without interference. —Yours, etc., Q.